


Some Kind of Ambush

by Yahong



Category: Minority Report (TV 2015)
Genre: Birthday, Fluff, Multi, THIS IS SUPER FLUFF OKAY, everybody loves Vega
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-22
Updated: 2016-07-23
Packaged: 2018-07-26 01:29:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7554883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yahong/pseuds/Yahong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Birthdays are hard for Vega. Cupcakes, best friends and Pride rainbows help a lot, though.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Long Red Ribbon

**Author's Note:**

> Everybody loves Vega. THAT'S IT, THAT'S THE FIC. Platonic/romantic/sexual/galaxial, whatever you want to call it, it’s yours. (Oh yeah, Lara’s bi/pan.) *dives into trash-hell*

Lily Vega had discovered that cupcakes first thing on the morning of her daughter’s birthday were a good way to get Lara to stick around for longer than ten minutes.

“Chocolate with double chocolate frosting,” she said, pushing the plate across the table.

Eyes wide, Lara looked up. “Double chocolate frosting?”

“Just kidding.” Her mother smiled. “You better taste to make sure, hm?”

Lara looked at the cupcakes, slid her mother a suspicious glance, then reached out and picked one off the plate. She bit in, and caught a little cake and mostly frosting: rich dulce de leche, sugar spreading through her mouth and sparkling over her senses.

“Mm.”

When she managed to open her eyes again, Lily’s smug smile was ready and waiting for her. “Don’t even start, Mom. I’ve gotta run in five so you share the rest of those with Rico, okay?”

“Rico’s getting the algae and palm frittata,” Lily said. “Since you never eat it.”

“Seriously? I always eat it. Just—in the evening, when I get back from work.”

“It should go to someone who appreciates it, don’t you think?” Lily sailed off into the kitchen.

Lara considered her cupcake. The solution to this was, she decided, to get better at cooking. Once she was able to bake her own cakes and fancy-ass Italian dishes, her mother would have no leverage on her, and she’d be able to do whatever she wanted on her birthday.

Plus, maybe she’d be able to bake something for her mother on _her_ birthday.

With that thought buoying her, Lara polished off the rest of the cupcake, grabbed her bag and favourite leather jacket and headed out the door.

*

Dash was waiting for her at the front door of the station. “Hi, Vega," he said, bounding over.

“Whatever you have for me, don’t give it here,” she said quickly to forestall him. “Also, thanks in advance.” She kept walking through the lobby, forcing him to keep up.

He side-shuffled to keep his left arm behind his back. “How do you even know I have something?” he said. “Isn’t that kind of presumptous of you?”

“…No-o,” Lara said, and thought quickly on her feet. “I’m assuming that you’re a good friend, so you got something for me.” She tossed him a winning smile.

After a moment of thinking, Dash nodded. “Okay.” He smiled in return.

He was, Lara thought, so easily pleased. It was one of the things she liked about him.

“So can I—”

“ _Not here_.”

“Right.” Dash bounced a little from the sheer force of his impatience.

They managed to make it to the elevator before he opened his mouth again and said in a rush, “It’s just that it’s time-sensitive and we sort of planned this specifically, for you, so…”

Lara turned to give him a look. He looked back with earnest eyes and a hopeful half-smile, and she sighed. “Inside the elevator.”

He hurried in and she punched the doors shut. The glass didn’t offer much privacy, but at least she wouldn’t get Hendrickson wandering by with oh-so-original jabs about prom night.

As they rose through the station, Dash finally brought his left hand forward. He uncurled his fingers to reveal a plain smartphone, the square 4-millimetre-pane model that the department had issued him.

Before Lara could raise her eyebrows, he spoke into it: “We just passed floor three, Akeela.”

She looked round and saw that they had, in fact, just passed the third floor. “This better not be some kind of ambush,” she said, turning back around to squint at him.

He just beamed and gestured for her to look back out the glass.

The moment she did, colour abruptly suffused the floor, walls and doors of the floor they were passing. Purple light shot through the glass infrastructure of the building as though its beams were made of OLEDs and nothing else; the violet glow lit every person on the floor from below like an old ‘10s sci-fi extraterrestrial film. Lara blinked several times in a row.

“Um—”

“Fourth floor,” Dash said cheerfully into his phone.

And the fourth floor lit up in blue. Somewhat braced this time, Lara peered at the people moving about on the floor. They seemed taken aback for a second, but continued on without looking around in complete confusion like she would’ve done.

She pivoted to stare at Dash. “Did you tell everyone in the building it was my birthday?”

“No, of course not!” he said, wounded. “I thought you wouldn’t like that very much. Fifth floor, Akeela.”

“All right, okay.” She shielded her eyes as cool green light engulfed the fifth floor. “So why isn’t anyone freaking out?”

“Lt. Blake told everyone that the department’s demonstrating its support for the Pride parade.” Dash grinned. “Which we are! By celebrating your birthday.”

Good God. Lara struggled to pick which of the many weird things to address first. “Why are you calling him Lieutenant?” All right, maybe not the priority. “And how did you get the Captains to agree to support Pride? Also, is a light-up building supposed to be my birthday present?”

His face fell. “Is it too tacky? I was brainstorming with Akeela—by the way, we’re here, Akeela!—and we were trying to come up with awesome but also discreet ideas. But she was worried about gifts because of last year’s birthday death shirt, so…”

The elevator doors slid open onto the sixth floor, which was golden-hued. As they exited, Lara tilted her head up and saw orange and red through the ceiling, the seventh and eighth floors completing the rainbow.

She looked back down and ahead as Dash continued talking beside her, and saw two figures waiting at her desk station: one brightly-coloured, the other monochrome. “Oh,” she said to Dash, interrupting him. “You only called him Lieutenant because Blake’s listening in on the call too.”

“Lara, the man calls me Lieutenant because that’s what I am,” came Blake’s drawl from Dash’s phone before Dash could say anything. “Happy birthday, by the way.”

“You weren’t supposed to say it yet,” Akeela reprimanded him in an undertone. Then, louder, “Dash, I’m hanging up.”

“Wait—” Dash said into the phone, but the call disconnected.

“All right, let’s just get this over with,” Lara said to him, and strode toward her desk.

As Blake and Akeela came into focus, she propped up an eyebrow. “We’re really going to work the whole day bathed in yellow?”

“It’s a gift from me as your boss to you,” Blake said, stepping forward to meet her with a smirk. “Happy bi—”

“Yeah, you said that already.” Lara side-stepped him to go to Akeela.

Blake put a palm out in front of her as a barrier. Lara looked down at the offending appendage, then stared at him.

He moved forward; his hand slid around her torso to press lightly into the dip of her waist as he stepped fully into her path. “Let me finish,” he said, his now-cajoling smile carrying faintly in his voice.

Lara shifted her weight away from the pressure of his touch and crossed her arms. “If you’re expecting a thank you, don’t hold your breath.”

“No, I just want to wish you a proper happy birthday,” he said easily, sliding his hands back into the pockets of his very nice grey suit. “From partner to partner. You know.”

“Well, _Lieutenant_ ,” Lara emphasized, “that’s very generous of you. Let me guess how much effort it took you to light up the building… hm, one phone call to your DIA buddies and the Captains were suddenly onboard? Am I close?” She cocked her head.

“Well, actually,” Dash piped up from behind, “it took us quite a bit of time to come up with this idea—”

“But you don’t want me to put in more effort,” Blake said, ignoring Dash. “That’d put you in my debt, now, wouldn’t it.”

Lara bared her teeth in an approximate smile. “Thanks for the birthday wishes.” She placed her hand on his shoulder, physically pushed him aside and went to Akeela.

She was perched on the edge of Lara’s desk, wearing a Pride-appropriate sheath dress with a spiral colourblock rainbow that grew from a point on her right side to swirl across the entire fabric. In her hand, she held a long red ribbon. “Hey, V.” Akeela held out the ribbon. “Give me your hand.”

“Why?” Lara said, and did so anyway.

“Because,” Akeela said cheerfully as she stood. She wrapped the ribbon once around Lara’s right wrist, tied a knot, then criss-crossed the ribbon up and around her forearm to end just below her elbow. There, Akeela tied a firm bow. “Ta-da.”

“What is it?” Lara asked, lifting her arm to inspect the ribbon.

“A way to remember your father,” Akeela said, sitting back down. She gently grasped Lara by her wrists and drew her in. “Whenever you feel bad about your birthday?” She tapped the ribbon and smiled up at Lara. “Look at this and think of him.”

Lara stared down at the ribbon, then met Akeela’s gaze. Immediately she looked away, down. Her throat was thick. She tried to swallow, find words.

“Is it stupid?” Akeela’s voice was quietly nervous now. “It’s just something I came up with. I mean, if it’s not—”

“It’s lovely.” Lara looked up again and attempted a smile.

Akeela’s returning smile dissolved the lump in Lara’s throat. She stepped forward and bumped her forehead against Akeela’s. “Thank you.” Then she twisted out of Akeela’s grasp, using the motion to inconspicuously wipe her cheek against her shoulder, and went to put her bag down beside her desk.

When she stood back upright, Dash was there, hovering right in her face. “Can I say happy birthday now?”

She put up a hand. “Yes, okay, you can. Stop looking so anxious.” Easily pleased also meant easily insecure, she had to remember. “Quietly, though.”

“Happy birthday!” Dash held out his arms in a celebratory pose, then looked at her with his well-practised hopeful face.

With a sigh and a smile, Lara leaned into his hug. “That was not quiet,” she said into his shoulder.

“Oh, I could have said it much louder,” he said earnestly.

That, she believed.


	2. Alpha Lyrae

Blake got her out of the building for lunch by dropping the bombshell three minutes to noon that his DIA friend was coming by sometime that day.

“I'm just saying,” he said in a tone that meant he was definitely not _just_ saying, “Leslie said she'd drop by on her lunch break. You know she wants you.”

“You mean _you_ know she wants me,” Lara shot back. But truth be told, Leslie did seem to be eyeing her up for some reason or other every time she came to the station on DIA business. Whether for good or bad, she decided she'd rather suffer Blake's company during a mall food court run than be watched unblinkingly by a DIA agent over lunch.

Plus, she'd forgotten to pack leftovers, and her mother had given the day’s frittata to Rico anyway.

Dash still wasn't back from following a new lead, so Lara grabbed Akeela as a buffer and headed out with Blake. “I buy my own food,” she warned them the instant they set foot out of the ridiculous-looking station. Glancing back at the rainbow, she blinked to take a photo and send it to her mother.

“Sure.” Akeela nodded, then stared at Blake until he shrugged and nodded too. “Oh,” she continued, “you might want to repeat that for his benefit.” She tipped her chin and ponytail toward someone approaching from across the police plaza.

Lara glanced around without stopping, then almost did. “Arthur? Since when do you visit us voluntarily?”

“Here to turn yourself in?” Blake suggested.

Arthur fell into step beside her, cutting Blake out. “Since it's a very special day, Detective.” He grinned and eyed Akeela's dress. “Are you ladies up for a little kiss? In the spirit of Pride?”

“Sexualizing lesbians?” Blake scoffed and elbowed Arthur to the side so they could all walk in a line. “Were you born in the 90s?”

“Actually, we're happy to provide,” Lara responded. She flashed an exasperated Blake and Arthur, who was masking his surprise, a wide smile. Then she stopped walking and turned to Akeela.

“You up for it?” she asked, tilting in toward Akeela to slide her hands down her arms. Her ribbon trailed her movements, extra friction against Akeela's skin.

“Now you've done it,” Blake muttered to Arthur in the background.

Akeela rolled her eyes, but turned her hands over palm-up to lace her fingers with Lara's. “Okay, birthday girl,” she said, words crossing the short distance to Lara's lips and sinking in.

“Thanks for everything,” Lara whispered, and pressed her mouth to Akeela's in a gentle brush. “Love you.”

“You're welcome.” Akeela tipped her head the slightest and fit her lips briefly against Lara's a second time.

Eyes closed, foreheads touching, they smiled into each other's mouths.

“All right, all right.” Blake coughed.

When they looked round, he was squinting off into the distance, shielding his view of them by pretending to scratch his neck. Arthur was pink and looking in the opposite direction as Blake.

“Was that everything you wanted?” Lara asked him sweetly.

Arthur met her eyes for only a second before turning pinker. “I—” He stalled for time by rubbing a hand over his face. “No,” he decided. “I’m sorry I asked.”

“That’s honest of you,” Akeela said, and linked her arm with Lara’s with a smug smile. They started walking again, Blake and Arthur falling in behind.

“I told you, man,” Blake groused to Arthur. “They're too damn romantic together. ‘S enough to make you jealous.”

“If you say so,” Arthur said, in a hastily-cobbled-together lofty tone.

A photographer and a journalist stopped them just outside the mall entrance. “Hi there!” The journalist beamed at Lara and Akeela. “Would you two possibly consider being profiled as part of our special issue today? Maybe with a photo of you together, embracing or—”

“ _No_ ,” said Blake and Arthur simultaneously, grabbed Lara and Akeela and towed them inside the mall.

*

“Look, Lara. Let me—”

“No.”

“Detective, allow me to—”

“ _I buy my own food_.”

…

“I told you you’d need to repeat it.”

“Actually, you boys can buy Akeela lunch. Sound good?”

“…”

“…”

*

After lunch, Lara and Akeela ran into Hendrickson in the station lobby.

His eyes widened at the sight of her ribboned arm. “Well, Vega. Is it your—”

“The ribbon,” Akeela interrupted, “is in memorial of Vega’s father. He died on this date.”

Hendrickson clamped his mouth shut, eyes growing even wider.

Akeela bestowed on him a serene smile, then towed Lara past him into the elevator.

“Vega—I’m sorry,” he called after them. “I didn’t know. I’m sorry—”

The elevator doors shut on his flushed face.

Lara gave Akeela a look.

“Now he won’t bother you,” Akeela said.

“If you’re right, then I forgive you.” But Lara knew she already forgave her. The sting of speaking about her father faded a bit more every year.

“Actually,” Akeela mused, “now he’ll probably grovel at your feet alongside Blake and Arthur. It’s getting crowded down there. Maybe you can fit him around the other pinky, opposite Dash.”

“As if.” Lara elbowed her. “You just want to use me to make them all bow to your will.”

“That does sound motivational,” Akeela agreed affably.

Lara looked up into the rainbow of the station’s floors, fingering her ribbon. “Akeela,” she said.

“Yeah?”

“Do you know how to bake?”

Akeela cocked her head. “No, do you?”

“I kinda want to learn.”

“Really? Why?”

“My mother always bakes me cupcakes for my birthday. I want to…” Lara hesitated. “Be able to reciprocate, you know.”

Akeela considered. “Okay, I’m guessing here, but try asking Dash.”

Lara frowned, then nodded. “You’re right, he does give off a bit of a baking vibe.”

“Kind of strange, eh?”

“Kind of strange, yeah.”

They snickered together.

*

Andromeda, of all people, was waiting at Lara’s desk for her, making Lara wish Akeela hadn’t gone off to troubleshoot the profiling system. She girded herself, then greeted the much taller woman with a polite smile.

“Can I help you?” No, wait, that wasn’t a yes/no question Andromeda would answer. “Are you here for Arthur?” she asked instead.

A nod.

“He should be back from the mall soon,” Lara told her, “he left to go to some meeting at around the same time we finished lunch.

Another nod. Andromeda’s expression was hard to read, but Lara didn’t think she was overly worried about Arthur’s whereabouts.

She offered another brief smile, then sat down at her desk. It was sliiightly intimidating to try and work with Andromeda right there at her station. Lara couldn’t help glancing up a few times.

Andromeda’s outfit caught her attention, a clash of cuts and colours that somehow looked excellent in the sixth floor's yellow glow. “Pride colours?” she asked carefully.

To her surprise, Andromeda’s face relaxed a fraction into a barely-discernible smile. She tipped her head.

It was much easier to smile when the other woman smiled first. “Nice. You can probably tell the station’s dressed up for the occasion, too.” She waved vaguely around.

Andromeda nodded again. Her smile faded, but her face stayed relaxed.

Lara went back to her work, feeling much more at ease, and dug into the case file Blake had dumped on her.

Before she’d done much beyond re-organize his witness accounts to suit her understanding of the case, Arthur was breezing off the elevator and into her desk station. “Oh, Andromeda,” he said. “You’re early. The parade doesn’t start until four.”

Andromeda shifted her weight and raised her brows a fraction.

“Yeah, I know, but I’m here to see Vega,” he said, and turned his attention toward Lara. “I hope you haven’t been waiting long for me, Detective. By the way, what's the ribbon for?”

“I’m not waiting for you, actually,” she said without looking up, ignoring his question.

“Then this surprise should be perfect,” he returned smoothly. He flicked a link from his watch to her screen; it expanded over top of the files on her desk.

Grumbling, Lara brought it into focus. It was a livefeed of international stock options, with fluid three-dimensional charts and alphanumerics everywhere. “What is this,” she said, doing her best to show no interest.

“Our company stock options. Specifically…” He leaned across the desk and, upside-down, navigated through the feed to zoom in on one specific performance chart of a thousand-share bundle. “The Lara Alpha Lyrae.”

She stared at the text underneath his finger.

“…Did you name one of your options after me.”

It was a statement of pure disbelief; she looked up expecting to see Arthur shake his head and provide some alternate explanation. Instead, his eyes met hers across a short distance; his position put him right in her space.

He grinned and, without moving away, said softly, “Alpha Lyrae is an alternate name for Vega, the fifth brightest star in the sky. Did you know?”

He had to be making that up. “You know I don’t know that.”

“Now you do.” His grin sweetened, and she saw a glimpse of the sincerity he usually held firmly apart from his suave business persona. “Vega,” he said in a smiling whisper. “I’m not lying.”

She felt her mouth curve involuntarily. “Okay,” she said. “I believe you. And this is a ridiculous present.”

His smile became dazzling. “Happy birthday,” he said softly, then pulled out of her space and stood upright.

Behind him, Andromeda’s expression changed, her eyes locking onto Lara.

Though Arthur’s back had been to her, he turned and responded directly to Andromeda: “Did Lara not tell you?” Some surprise, but not too much.

She moved her head to the side, half of a head-shake. Her gaze still pinned Lara.

Offering a weak shrug, Lara brushed away Arthur’s livefeed away to have somewhere else to look besides Andromeda’s stare. “It’s really not… I don’t like to make a big deal of it.”

Andromeda shifted forward in that long stride of hers, moving next to Arthur. She slid his watch from his wrist and, as he unprotestingly watched, swiped and tapped out a few motions. Lara’s desk pinged. She glanced questioningly at the two of them as she opened the link her station had just received.

It was the same livefeed of their stock options, but the owner listed above the Lara Alpha Lyrae option had changed from Arthur’s and Andromeda’s company name. It was now _Det. Lara Vega_.

She gaped at it.

“Andromeda,” Arthur began, in a mildly inquiring tone of voice.

The look she gave him shut him up nicely.

“I,” Lara managed, “don’t think you should give me a thousand shares of your company.” She worked up a smile that hopefully didn’t look too flabbergasted and aimed it at Andromeda.

But Andromeda just returned that tiny, serene smile of hers, dropped the watch back into Arthur’s hand and retreated from the desk.

Lara looked to Arthur for help, but he was studiously refastening his watch. “I suppose you’re not the worst person to have to repurchase shares from in the future,” he said without looking up, rueful but accepting. To Andromeda, he said, “This makes us even for the HK market red diamonds buy.”

“But you won’t have to repurchase them if you just take them back now,” Lara pointed out. She stood and swiped the link back to Arthur’s watch. “Really, I don’t need this generosity—”

Arthur met her gaze with an expression of fond exasperation. “Don’t say no to money, Detective.”

“Who’s saying no to money?” Akeela rounded the corner and entered Lara’s station. She came just short of stopping when she saw Arthur and Andromeda.

That allowed Blake, who seemed suspiciously close to running, to catch up with her and push his way into Lara’s station as well. “Akeela, those developers still need your help. You can’t leave them out to dry like that.”

“I’m not hand-holding anyone through a basic all-system reboot,” she dismissed, picking up her initial trajectory toward Lara. “Ooh, what’s that?”

Arthur flashed an inexplicable look that was almost panicky toward Blake. The latter hurried forward, but he failed to stop Akeela before she joined Lara at her desk. As they leaned into each other, hip to hip, resigned and vexed expressions crossed both men’s faces.

“It’s nothing,” Lara said, trying to brush the livefeed off her desk. Easily, Akeela snagged it back from her and twirled it into focus. Her eyebrows lifted, elongating her tattoo beautifully. “I mean, it’s just a stock option. Andromeda’s.”

“That’s not what this ‘owner’ label tells me, Miss One Percent.” Akeela’s fingers danced over the words _Det. Lara Vega_. She turned to Andromeda. “This is your company?”

Arthur twitched, but restrained himself. Andromeda inclined her head, then glanced at Arthur. “My bad,” he apologized in an undertone.

“Well.” Akeela considered the stocks’ livefeed once more. “Pretty nice.” She nodded back to Andromeda with something near respect.

“All right, Detective Vega’s got work to do,” Blake said loudly from his forgotten position behind Akeela. “Let’s all get out and let her start earning her pay.”

Akeela nudged a shoulder into Lara. “Or I could stay and help Lara with ID-ing the witnesses, I’m free now.”

“ _No_ ,” said Blake and Arthur together. They glared at each other, then at Lara and Akeela.

Lara exchanged looks with Akeela, then side-eyed the men. “That’s the second time they’ve done that today,” Lara said conversationally to Andromeda. In response, Andromeda’s face showed no surprise and the barest hint of eyeroll.

As she was about to ask Arthur and Blake to explain what was up with them, Dash burst in.

“Why is everyone here?” he said. “Are we having a party for Vega?”

“Nope. Arthur, Andromeda and Blake were just leaving,” Akeela said promptly.

“No, we weren’t,” Blake snapped at the same time Arthur said, “We weren’t, actually.”

Dash blinked, then ignored them and made a beeline for Lara. “Vega, Officer Hendrickson stopped me in the lobby and told me to apologize for him,” he said, a bit fretfully. “Did he try to make a joke again? Should I tell him to knock it off?”

Lara sort of doubted that Dash telling anyone to knock it off would be effective, but she appreciated the intent anyway. “It’s fine, Akeela took care of it.”

“Oh. Good.” He still looked concerned.

“By the way, Dash,” Akeela said to him. “Do you bake as well as you sing?”

He furrowed his brow at the non-sequitur. “I'm not sure. Why do you ask—?” 

“Enough, everybody out!” Blake commanded. “Lara needs to work!”

Nobody listened, to everyone’s annoyance but Andromeda’s.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *surfaces from trash-hell* My ultimate not-so-guilty fantasy is two women in love surrounded by a reverse harem of jealous men. Also, researching stars and galaxies was fun! My headcanon is that Andromeda names all their options after stars or constellations. Is that a thing? Do people name stock options? (My research into stocks and shares was much less fun.)

**Author's Note:**

> Birthdays are my absolute favourite plot device to make everyone and everything revolve around the WoC protagonist, so I have no shame about reusing it in another fandom. :D :D :D


End file.
